"Are you telling me what I think I am hearing?" Scarlett asked Sherlock as he paced up and down in her hospital room. His wife had been constrained to her bed for if she were to move then her stitches may break once again. She moved around uncomfortably as Sherlock held his hands together, placing them onto his lips as he thought silently. "I shot him."
"No," Sherlock replied. "He's back. The postcard was his writing and he text me Scarlett. He text me for goodness sake!"
"So you think he has our daughter?" Scarlett asked. "You think that a man I shot has our daughter?"
"I think it is obvious," Sherlock told her. "I think he is back but I don't know how he didn't die."
"I shot him...I shot him in the head..." Scarlett muttered. "I know I did Sherlock."
"I know," he told her. "I saw you after it and you showed the obvious signs of having shot someone."
"Creepy, is it not?" a sudden voice spoke and Sherlock looked up to the door where a tall woman was stood, her hair was in a bun at the back of her head and she wore a crisp white skirt with a white blouse and fur coat, her heels clicking onto the floor as Sherlock and Scarlett looked at her.
"Miss Adler," Sherlock simply spoke as Scarlett shook her head.
"Where is she?" Scarlett roared, her own blonde curls moving around her face ferociously as she sweated. "Where is my daughter?"
"I do not know the answer to that," Irene told them.
"You're lying," Scarlett simply said and Irene shrugged, playing on her phone and not looking at the pair of them.
"I may be," she replied. "But even if I knew where your precious daughter was then I would not tell you. Can you confirm that, Sherlock?"
"Yes," Sherlock replied. "She wouldn't tell us anything. She isn't in this deeply. She's just a messenger judging from the envelope in her pocket."
"You still have it," she commented with a chuckle, removing the envelope and handing it to Sherlock before playing on her phone one more time.
"I must be going," she said in a slow drawl. "People from the government are still out for me and all that."
"It must be terrible," Sherlock murmured.
"You can only imagine," she said with a chuckle. "I'll be seeing you soon."
"Sherlock!" Scarlett snapped at her husband. "Are you not going to go after her?"
"No," Sherlock spoke slowly. "She doesn't know anything. Moriarty won't trust her that much. He doesn't trust anything or anyone."
"What's in the envelope?" Scarlett wondered and Sherlock gulped loudly as he looked into it and handed it to his wife.
"Lizzie," she rested her hand onto the little girl's photo and she shook her head. "What do we do?"
"I'm going to find her," Sherlock said decisively. "You're going to stay here."
"No," Scarlett huffed.
"Yes," Sherlock replied. "You're still not well and running around the streets of London will not help anyone. I don't need your help."
"You may not need my help," Scarlett huffed, "but I am going to give you it."
Scarlett began to climb from her bed and Sherlock rolled his eyes, moving his hand into his coat pocket as his wife began to stand. He gently prodded the syringe into her arm and squeezed down, transferring the liquid from the clear tube into her bloodstream. She looked down at the syringe and then back at her husband.
"What is that?" she asked simply.
"A sedative," Sherlock told her. "I know you'd argue with me on this matter so I had Molly make me one up when I was in the lab."
"You drugged me?" she checked, feeling her limbs tire as Sherlock held her up in his arms.
"Technically it wasn't a drug," he replied and saw her eyes close slightly.
"You're an arse Sherlock Holmes," she said simply. "A complete and utter arse."
And then she fell asleep and became a dead weight in Sherlock's arms as he laid her back onto the bed, pushing her hair from her face and kissing her on the forehead.
"Just stay here," he muttered, "for me."
...
"My daddy said I should never talk to strangers," Elizabeth huffed as she sat cross legged on the bed which had been set up in the basement of a house. The man named Jim looked at her with a cocked brow.
"Did your daddy give you any more nuggets of wisdom?" he asked her and she pouted, crossing her legs.
"I want my daddy," she said sternly, "and my mummy."
"They're engaged," he told her.
"They are married you idiot," she told him, taking his words literally as he rolled his eyes, sitting on the end of the bed.
"Do you like fairytales?" he asked her and she said nothing back to him. "Because you know that in every fairytale there is the kidnapped princess?"
"Not in Pinocchio," she pointed out, "or in the Gingerbread Man or in Puss in Boots or-"
"It's irrelevant," Jim snapped loudly. "In this fairytale there is the kidnapped princess and then there is always a knight in shining armour who saves her, correct?"
"Yes," Elizabeth whispered; becoming scared from the look the man was giving her and he chuckled once.
"Well in this fairytale the knight isn't coming to save the princess and the villain will win."
"I think I understand," Elizabeth told him. "And I disagree."
"You do?"
"Yes," she huffed. "Because my daddy said there is nothing such as a knight in shining armour...he said the only rescuer is a consulting detective."
"Daddy's wrong."
"Daddy is never wrong."
